Description The Coast Guard is responding to a fuel oil spill in the waters off Staten Island. The fuel is leaking from a cargo tank aboard a barge at Mays Ship Repair. The Coast Guard says the leak began late Friday. Coast Guard spokeswoman Jetta Disco said early Saturday that authorities have narrowed down the source of the leak to one tank on the barge. She says that tank's capacity is 147,000 gallons, but it's not clear how much has leaked. Disco says a flyover is scheduled after sunup to assess the extent of the spill. A company has been contracted to start cleanup. Mariners are being advised to travel through the area with caution because of pollution. [link to hisz.rsoe.hu]

At 0240 the NOAA SSC received a call from USCG D1 DRAT saying a barge (Boston 30) carrying 220,000 bbl [9,240,000 gallons] potential #6 heating oil is spilling to the Kill Van Kull at Mariners Harbor, Staten Island. Operators noticed odor and visual oil between hulls of the Boston 30 and another barge (DDL 25) to which oil was being lightered due to unknown damage below the waterline of Boston 30. Mariners Harbor is just west of the Bayonne Bridge on Staten Island across from Shooters Island. Miller Environmental is OSRO on-scene and is deploying containment boom to spill area. At 0750 USCG SECTOR NY called and requested trajectory for a 158,000 gallon release of #6. Air Station Cape Cod will conduct a flyover at 07:13 (sun rise). Oil is reported in the Kill Van Kull and Arthur Kill.Note the variety of conflicting information in the reports below

Staten Island Advance:

The barge was reportedly carrying nearly one million gallons of #6 fuel oil, but it is not known how much of the product was discharged [...] Emergency radio transmissions indicate that 100,000 gallons were released into the Arthur Kill. The spill is now contained, but the barge has not yet off load [...]Reuters:

A barge reportedly carrying nearly one million gallons of fuel oil was leaking oil from a cargo tank into a New York City harbor on Saturday, officials said.Associated Press:

Coast Guard spokeswoman Jetta Disco said early Saturday that authorities have narrowed down the source of the leak to one tank on the barge. She says that tank’s capacity is 147,000 gallons, but it’s not clear how much has leaked.

Updated: Sunday, 16 December, 2012 at 16:49 UTC Description A barge with a leaking cargo tank spilled fuel oil into a New York City waterway on Saturday, officials said. The barge was carrying 112,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil, but it was unclear how much oil spilled into the water, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement. The spill came from a Boston Marine Transport Inc barge due to a leak from its cargo tank, it said. The leak occurred at Mays Ship Repair near Mariner's Harbor in the city's Staten Island borough, the Coast Guard said. It was first reported shortly after 11 p.m. local time (2300 ET) on Friday, the Coast Guard said. Boston Marine Transport said fuel was being transferred from one barge to another when oil could be seen seeping into the water between them, the Coast Guard said. The first barge had the leak, it said. Boston Marine Transport workers put a containment boom around the two barges, the Coast Guard said. The Coast Guard said the fuel was leaking into Kill Van Kull, a waterway between Staten Island and New Jersey that connects to New York Bay and the Hudson River. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection were responding to help contain the spill, the Coast Guard said. [link to hisz.rsoe.hu]